A paragraph this good -and by good I mean packed with information that most people don’t know- just needs top be shared. Notice the area that I bolded..
The inner circle includes but is not limited to the Hazara Vice President, Karim Khalili; Kabir Mohabat, an Afghan with American citizenship; “Marshal” and now Vice President Muhammad Qasim Fahim, a Tajik; and “Marshal” Abdul Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek warlord who disdains any government post but is the President’s “right hand.” (Dostum deserves an Olympic gold medal for opportunism. A leader of the Uzbek people of the North, he fought the Russians, then joined them to fight the insurgents; then he joined the insurgency to fight the Russians; next he joined the Taliban; then he switched sides again to join the anti-Taliban “Northern Alliance” and is infamous for suffocating in steel lift vans in the sweltering summer captured Taliban soldiers. Now – for how long? – he is a supporter of President Karzai.) It also includes Zara Ahmad Mobil who ran what is regarded as the most corrupt organization in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Interior, and (as an editorial in The Guardian put it) “is now in charge of the opium industry;” and, of course, the Karzai family. [Source, first paragraph on the page.]
My reaction to this was to read the paragraph three times in a row. Sit back and think about it for a a few seconds, then read it a forth time.
I can’t make up someone that shady! And yet… Un-fucking-believable.
Time to get some lunch.
Tags: Abdul Rashid Dostum, Afghan, American, Anti-Taliban, corruption, government, Karzai, Northern Alliance, Russinas, Taliban, Uzbek, warlord